Posted by concerned on December 10, 2000, at 16:41:04
It is unfortunate that Hsuing continues to represent himself as an arbiter of civility. Hsuing says abstractly that the board cannot be all things to all people, yet he frequently accuses members of the public, who he openly and indiscriminately invites to his board, of incivility. The message is that the board is not for people who are uncivilized, and that his status qualifies him for the role of arbitrating who is civilized and who is not. While his ever expanding definition of civility labels anyone whose analysis can be construed as “accusatory” as uncivil, he commits the same supposed offense, by labeling as uncivil support and education regarding ideas he dislikes.
Civilizations have adopted all manners of standards by which either dominant or counter-cultural sectors define civility. The dominant Western standard of civility was hammered into shape during millennia in which civility was defined as compliance with Roman ideals and mythology. Opposition to the “civil” ideal was eradicated by torture and mass murder. Our current versions of history are largely the propaganda of the victors of the Roman inquisition, and our current social philosophies cannot be viewed as detached standards that were not primarily shaped by the threats that controled Western thought for 2000 years. The annual sale worldwide of hundreds of thousands of electric shock prod devices for police use, and the widespread distribution of other technologies – including psychotropic medications – for political control is evidence that our converging global culture is not that of a civil society but rather that of a society of forced compliance.
Pullmarine’s analysis might be 100 percent accurate. Even the predominant Western religion of our time asserts that all have sinned and that the wages of sin is death. To accuse people of incivility for paraphrasing this idea is nothing but bald arrogance born of the mental insulation afforded by an academic community.
Hsuing might choose to bar from his board certain kinds of dialogue. But by his own admission, his standard of civility is arbitrary and subjective. To accuse participants in his openly published board of being uncivilized because they do not anticipate and comply with his personal and arbitrary standard of civility is in itself uncivil and offensive to an open and free society.
Perhaps those who find merit in this board underestimate the harm caused by writers who label as ill others whose countenance they dislike and who label as uncivilized those whose ideas and form of written expression they dislike. As Hsuing continues to direct emotion-laden dialogue among an ever-changing world wide group of strangers, within the arbitrary boundaries of his self-styled definition of civility, the potential of a Werther Effect event among the often disturbed people attracted to this site should be apparent to Hsuing’s professional peers.
Further, a recent $675,000 libel judgement against a doctor who posted anonymously at another medical bulletin board should serve as a warning here, in the wake of a recent libelous posting that claimed otherwise credible research was a hoax. Curiously, in that particular thread, Hsuing never intervened to direct to the “admin” board postings by those who complained about the damaged publisher’s action to defend their product.
I suggest that Hsuing install a portal software for his board, to pass beyond which a person must agree, not to a vague and inaccurate standard of civility, support and education, but rather to whatever arbitrary rules Hsuing chooses to impose, and by which, without such an agreement, no person may read the archives or contribute to the restricted dialogue. In other words, please take this conversation private so unsuspecting visitors will not become entangled in Hsuing’s hurtful imposition of his personal values.
poster:concerned
thread:96
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20001124/msgs/96.html